What is better? A plastic sofa that lasts for 15 years or a biobased sofa that lasts for 7 years? How do you determine what is better from an environmental, user, and financial perspective? What does this mean for product design? These are relevant questions if you want to design and bring a product to the market in a circular way. The fact that circular design is an important condition for a circular economy is evident from the fact that 80% of the environmental impact is already determined in the design phase of a product. This phase goes beyond just functionality, material choice, or aesthetic design. Life Cycle Design is a strategy that allows designers to design in a circular manner. In collaboration with Fraunhofer IZM, CIRCONNECT organized an expert session on this topic for the Circular Design Forum. You can read a recap of that afternoon below.
The Circular Design Forum (CDF) is a young collaborative initiative where knowledge, ideas and practices are shared among various stakeholders in the field of circular design. The initiative was launched in early 2023 and consists of a diverse group of organizations, including manufacturers, universities, research institutes, and design agencies. It is intended to be a hotspot for building valuable relationships with experts in the field, creating common understanding and catalyzing circular design.
Expert session Life Cycle Design
CDF already organized expert sessions last March (system design) and April (sustainable materials). Last month it was CIRCONNECT and Fraunhofer IZM who provide a session on the topic of life cycle design. Fraunhofer Institute specializes in applied and industrial contract research and focuses on packaging technology and the integration of multifunctional electronics in systems.
In preparation of the expert session, it quickly became clear that there is a need for more in-depth research on this subject. Designers do have an idea of what lifecycle design entails and how they can apply it in practice. However, there are still diverse opinions regarding the definition and the various tools and approaches that designers can utilize to achieve a circular product. This was an extra motivation to use all available design knowledge and thus advance the subject of life cycle design in a co-creation session.
Introduction to Life Cycle Design
Within CIRCONNECT, we consider life cycle design as the process of designing products based on their entire life cycle. This includes the extraction and processing of raw materials, pre-production, production, distribution, product use, and the return of materials to industrial cycles. Choices are made based on price, usability, and environmental indicators.
With the participants, often familiar with the subject and at the same time still fully discovering, we put life cycle design into practice in 4 blocks:
- Understanding the current status of life cycle design within the design practice.
- Introduction and validation of the Circular Design Framework as a tool to develop design dimensions.
- Application of this framework to specific sectors, in this case furniture and electronics.
- Sharing conclusions and raising follow-up questions.
Well-known but not always loved
Polls and brainstorming sessions revealed that the participants are already well-versed in the topic, with 96% of them familiar with life cycle design. However, only a small portion (15%) of the participants apply this in all the decisions they make during their design process. For some companies, design choices are primarily driven by aesthetics and functionality, with little focus on life cycle design. Another mentioned barrier is that design decisions are made at the highest level within the company and not at the design table.
The Circular Design Framework
Life cycle design is an integrated approach with numerous design elements, as mentioned in the definition. To gain a better understanding of all these design dimensions, the Circular Design Framework was developed by the circular design program CIRCO in collaboration with CIRCONNECT partners. The framework emerged from years of experience with circular design methodologies that CIRCO has accumulated. It also recognizes that the field is still young and evolving.
Three elements come together in this practical framework:
- The Value Hill: a proven tool for assessing product value retention.
- Three design dimensions: from product and service to business model and value system.
- Four design focuses: the stages of a product’s life cycle, with a prominent role for the Rethink strategy from the R-ladder.
The framework has been presented in various national and international settings. To further develop it, it is important to hear from designers whether it works for them and if it aligns with their daily design practice. During the expert session, it was noticeable that participants primarily approached life cycle design from an environmental perspective. Considering the business model and value system in their design process is still relatively new, even for this group of well-informed designers.
Application in the furniture sector
Each sector has its own characteristics and challenges. What does this imply for the application of circular design tools? Do they also differ per sector? To explore this, the Circular Design Framework was applied to a case in the furniture sector (Landal GreenParks & OT Design) during the session. Value retention is a significant challenge in this particular sector. Furniture in holiday parks, for example, is heavily used. A sofa is often replaced after seven years, and sometimes even sooner. These sofas are fully glued and stapled, making repairs expensive and recycling difficult.
These companies developed a modular sofa, with a focus on business potential as a key starting point. The design enables quick repairs, updates, and recyclability. It is expected that the sofa will last up to 15 years. The steel frame provides a strong foundation to which the other modules are attached and can be reused. The appearance of the sofa can be altered by replacing the armrests, legs, or upholstery. Each component of the sofa has a separate cover that is easy to replace.
Each sector has its own characteristics and challenges. What does this imply for the application of circular design tools? Do they also differ per sector? To explore this, the Circular Design Framework was applied to a case in the furniture sector (Landal GreenParks & OT Design) during the session. Value retention is a significant challenge in this particular sector. Furniture in holiday parks, for example, is heavily used. A sofa is often replaced after seven years, and sometimes even sooner. These sofas are fully glued and stapled, making repairs expensive and recycling difficult.
These companies developed a modular sofa, with a focus on business potential as a key starting point. The design enables quick repairs, updates, and recyclability. It is expected that the sofa will last up to 15 years. The steel frame provides a strong foundation to which the other modules are attached and can be reused. The appearance of the sofa can be altered by replacing the armrests, legs, or upholstery. Each component of the sofa has a separate cover that is easy to replace.
Different design challenges within a sector
From the valuable discussions among participants, it became evident that the characteristics of a specific sector do influence the challenges related to product/service, business model, and value system. One notable insight is that these challenges not only differ between sectors but also within a sector. This can be attributed to variations in market position and positioning. For instance, in the case of a high-end electronics brand, circularity is closely intertwined with product characteristics. High reparability and high quality are important elements in the design process. There is already a commercial incentive, and it directly contributes to their positioning. Circular design is fully embedded in the company at all levels. However, even for these companies, it is worthwhile to scrutinize their business model, despite the likely higher profit margin already achieved. There is still much to be gained in this regard. On the other hand, when we consider a low-end brand, we see that different drivers may come into play. For example, circular design choices may be weighed against the costs of certain forms of CO2 offsetting. In this case, designers have less freedom to make these choices.
Conclusions and next Steps
At the end of this session, participants reflected on the topic of life cycle design in general and the Circular Design Framework in particular. Is it a logical framework? What else is needed before you start using it in your daily design practice? Or are there other tools that you use? Participants see the value in incorporating the business model and value system perspective into their design process. They estimate that it may still be complex for companies, and they may choose specific elements from the framework, while an integrated approach can work well at the sector level.
What comes next after this session? The wealth of available design knowledge has provided valuable insights that help translate the concept of life cycle design and integrate it into the daily practices of businesses. Iris Grobben (CIRCONNECT), who facilitated the session together with Pieter van Os and Ronja Scholz (Fraunhofer IZM), looks back on the afternoon with satisfaction:
“Holistically considering the impact on environmental indicators such as CO2, biodiversity, water consumption, and the business potential of design choices is necessary to create viable and future-proof circular products and propositions. The field of life cycle design is gradually advancing through designers in their daily practice at innovative companies that dare to think about designing products for multiple life cycles, gaining experience, and bringing conceptual ideas to fruition. The session was a good validation of the framework developed by the circular design knowledge platform, and CIRCONNECT continues to make efforts to gather, make applicable, and make this knowledge available”.
This expert session was facilitated in collaboration with Fraunhofer IZM through the Circular Design platform, CIRCONNECT. This platform focuses on gathering and making circular design knowledge available, with the aim of accelerating the transition to a circular economy. CIRCO is the initiator and driving force behind this platform. Currently, 15 partners are involved and they have started shaping the platform further.